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Re: DSM MPIO not supported in Guest VM OS?

 
Paul Hutchings
Super Advisor

DSM MPIO not supported in Guest VM OS?

Speaking to a Lefthand techie today to finalise a proposed config and he said that they (Lefthand) don't recommend installing their DSM MPIO pack on Windows VM's because vmware themselves don't support/recommend anything other than Window native iSCSI MPIO.

It was a conversation about lots of things so I've not yet got back to him with any follow-up stuff, but does anyone have any knowledge/experience of this?
3 REPLIES 3
Russ Couch
New Member

Re: DSM MPIO not supported in Guest VM OS?

Hi Paul

Yes I stumbled across the same fact recently when troubleshooting an issue we had with our SAN. I had to remove the DSM MPIO installation before HP would continue to work on our case. HP/Lefthand couldn't produce any documentation about this but I found a statement in VMware documentation that stated they didn't support MPIO within a VM, so its VMware rather than HP. We are however still running two other VM's with the DSM installed without any issues to date. If you're thinking about running an active/active multi-site configuration like we are then the DSM is pretty handy.

Cheers
Russ..
Paul Hutchings
Super Advisor

Re: DSM MPIO not supported in Guest VM OS?

So how do all of you do things then?

For our file server I guess RDM would be sufficient and let vSphere take care of MPIO?

For Exchange/SQL I'm not sure MPIO is much of a benefit but I would like to take application aware snapshots.

To do this can I use RDM or do I have to use the MS iSCSI initiator from within the VM?

The HP guy I spoke to said using the MPIO DSM from within the guest can corrupt data, which is naturally kind of worrying (I'll be trying to clear that up tomorrow).
Russ Couch
New Member

Re: DSM MPIO not supported in Guest VM OS?

Hi Paul

You have to use the MS iSCSI initiator inside the VM to be able to take application aware snapshots. For this you install and configure the Lefthand VSS component in the VM, but don't install the DSM. DSM MPIO does give you better performance so its up to you whether you want to take the risk.

Apparently support for application aware snapshots for RDMs is coming in a future release of SANIQ.

Cheers
Russ..